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Topic: Just won my FOIA lawsuit against the NPS! (Read 7935 times)

Most agencies are happy to give me trail data for My Trails. They recognize it is a public benifit for the public to be able to see where the trails are located on thier GPS. Even the National Park Service is normally happy to provide me data and they have lots of great data on the Internet.

A couple of years ago I attended a public meeting the NPS was having on the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. They told me they had GPSed their trails. So I emailed them telling them what Iwanted the data for and asking for it. After several months I got them to respond and they refused to give me the data.

So I filed a Freedom of Informaiton Act Request for the data. They told me it would take them 40 hours to find the data and I would have to pay about $1,400 for the trail files. I told them it should only take 15 minutes to get the data and the Forest Service has sent me data while I was still on the phone asking for it. I also asked for a public interest fee waiver. I gave them a link to My Trails and pointed out thousands have downloaded my maps.

In 2007 Congress amended FOIA to not allow them to charge search fees if they do not rule on the request within 20 days. After 20 days, I pointed out they can no longer change me search fees since they missed the deadline. They refused and I filed an appeal.

8 months latter they ruled on my appeal. First in spite of my link to this site, they basically claimed I was lying about making the maps and thousands of people downloading them and denied my fee wavier. They also ruled thier 2002 regulations trumped the 2007 Amendments to FOIA. In other words, they made the absurd argument that Congress cannot overturn thier requlations.

So a friend of mine filed a pro bono lawsuit. The judge ruled in my favor today. So the NPS has spent 10s of thousands of dollars to avoid letting citizens see on their GPS where the trails their tax dollars paid for are located!

I got the data today. It looks like the NPS lied about how long it would have taken them to sort out the data I asked for. IMHO, any copetent GIS person could have given me the data I asked for in less than an hour. They were claiming they coulld not tell a file name like alley_sp_tr was a shapefile of the Alley Spring Trail. It is just appalling what they went to too stop me from helping citizens better enjoy thier National Park! I should have a new version of My Trails with the new data in a day or two.

Well done. It's strange that the NPS would treat their trail information which was obtained using public employees on public land and using public money as if it is a secret or commodity. I can't believe the government these days.

Sadly, I think you're probably right. Generally speaking, we're very fortunate in the US to have so much free GIS data available - people in other countries have expressed envy in fact. But those servers and staff cost money, and at some point the various agencies are bound to take a closer look at their budgets. Tough choices these days. In the meantime, I just keep downloading everything I can find while it's still free.